Walking Dead stars describe the original S3 finale we didn't see

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We’d already heard that the final scenes of The Walking Dead’s third season were tweaked at the eleventh hour, but now the stars who were cut have revealed exactly what we missed. So how did things play out originally?

Spoilers ahead for The Walking Dead’s third-season finale!

The death of Andrea (Laurie Holden) was a shocker for fans, especially considering that her character survived much longer in the comic versions. The writers felt it was a good ending to her arc, so Andrea was always going to die, but the details of her death scene changed dramatically along the way.

Originally, it was newcomers Tyreese (Chad Coleman) and Sasha (Sonequa Martin-Green) who found Andrea near death, after being chomped on by zombie-Milton. A change was made to bring the core cast in for Andrea’s farewell, which seemed like a fitting farewell for the character.

So how did her death scene play out with Tyreese and Sasha? Here’s what Coleman told Entertainment Weekly about the ending we never saw:

“Man, it was awesome. Sasha and I, we were protecting the wall and we heard these screams. We followed the screams, going through the streets with our weapons. I’ve got to kick in this door, which will probably be one of the bloopers. I went to kick the door in and I almost fell backwards down the stairs. Whoever rigged that door, they got me on that one. But, we kick in the door and finally we get to [Andrea], and it was an incredibly powerful, excruciating scene. Sasha and I are doing our best to try and comfort her before she took herself out. I thought there was some great work going on. But I was there for the revision and that was incredibly powerful, and it made all the more sense for it to be full-circle for them. But for us, it was excruciating, and it was really powerful. I hope they dig it up. I’d love to see it.”

Martin-Green had a lot more to say about the scene, and it sounds like it would’ve featured quite a bit of additional character development for Sasha. The writers ultimately decided to push some of that growth off into season four, as we’ve already heard that Tyreese and Sasha will become major players when the zombie drama returns.

Here is Martin-Green’s description of Andrea’s original death:

“Wow, that scene was something else. Sasha and Tyreese are on guard in Woodbury, everybody’s gone to the prison to do the raid where they got defeated, and we’re back behind taking care of the people that were left behind. And we hear screaming, we hear noises, and we go and we seek it out and we find her. She’s in this torture chamber. And so we walk in and we say, ‘Oh my gosh, who did this? How did this happen? Who did this to you?’ And of course, we deduce that it was the Governor. We unchain her, we see that she’s bitten. She wants a gun. She says, ‘Give me a gun. Give me one of your guns.’ Tyreese doesn’t want to do it. He’s like, ‘No, no,’ but she’s like, ‘No, I’ve made up my mind. Give me a gun. I’m going to end this.’ It was very endearing and it was quite heart-wrenching, this scene, because to find her at that point in her life, at the end, especially we were not that familiar with her—Sasha and Tyreese, I mean—so to come to someone and to find them in the most vulnerable moment of their life, it was hard. The scene, it had a serious depth to it.

And it was respected, the magnitude of the moment. It was extremely heavy. And we knew this was the last moments of her life, and so we were extremely respectful. Once she talked us into giving her the gun, it was her funeral. It was a memorial service to her. We handed her the gun and we let her be. There was also a moment where Sasha’s cradling Andrea in her hands after we unchain her. And it’s a to-do to get all the chains off of her, and we’re literally cradling her and Sasha says, ‘We’re not going to leave you here,’ which is a serious arc for Sasha from the first episode where she’s ready to leave Donna who is a part of their camp. It spoke to her journey and where she ended up. And she says, ‘No, I want you to give me the gun and I want you to leave me.’ And so we do, and Sasha and Tyreese stand outside of the door and hear the gun shot and share a look with each other, and that was the end of the scene. It was extremely powerful. I will say though, to be honest, I liked what happened better because it needed that. Andrea needed that goodbye. She needed to be united with her family. That was really important to show. So, I loved shooting what we did, but I love the way it ended up.”

Hearing all of that, do you still prefer the version that aired? Do you at least hope these scenes pop up on the Blu-ray release?